October 05, 2003
Burned Out Social Workers Suck
One of the main problems in the social work profession is burn out. Really talented social workers are often overwhelmed by the sheer volume of their caseloads and/or their clients' needs, and they burn out. I'm trying to keep this in mind as I think about what happened Friday afternoon, and chalk up my colleague's behavior to burn out.
I called one of my clients Friday afternoon to check in with her and to give her the name of her new social worker. While on the phone, she told me that she now has a protective order (which he didn't contest - yay!) in addition to the military no contact order, and she intends to file for divorce. The problem is that her abusive husband thinks that they are going to get back together after he "gets help." My client wanted to know what to do next - she can't tell him she's filing for divorce because they cannot have contact, and she needs to sell their house.
This is an extremely delicate situation because the husband has threatened to kill her and is volatile when angered. I'm afraid that when he finds out she's filing for divorce, he will make good on his threat.
That being said, having never been in this situation before, I told her I would consult with my supervisor and get back to her. My inclination was to do some heavy-duty safety planning with the wife and then plan a course of action. But since Friday was my last day, I wouldn't be able to do that. My supervisor agreed, and called in the social worker who will be taking the case to fill her in and ask her what we should do.
Well, this social worker looked at me like I had three heads and kept repeating, "Well, I mean, this sounds like a problem for legal. With a protective order in place, there's nothing we can do about it." Ummm... HELLO?!?!? Are you kidding me? Here I'm telling her that I think the husband could KILL the wife, and she is trying to pawn it off on legal. How slack is that? And she knows as well as I do that the most dangerous time for a victim of domestic violence is when s/he decides to leave.
Then, she says, "Well, I guess I could see her, but I'm so swamped with intakes right now, I can't even follow up with my own clients. It may be a week, even two." Okay, look, I know she's busy, but she only had two, count 'em, two, intakes this week, and one of them was bogus. She didn't want to get involved because she hasn't met the clients yet and isn't invested. Which is a load of crap, and I could not believe she was so disinterested.
So, I decided that since I would be on base Wednesday anyway, I wasn't going to wait one to two weeks for her to see my client. So my supervisor and I will be seeing my client together that afternoon to safety plan and make some decisions. I called my client back and told her not to do anything before we meet, and in the meantime, we would contact legal and some other base agencies to get more information.
In case I failed to mention this before - I am an unpaid intern. Actually, I paid over $3,000 in tuition and fees for the privilege of having an internship. And my internship ended on Friday. I'm coming in Wednesday because I cannot, in good conscience, leave my client in this social worker's hands. It's a really sad thing when someone making at least $45,000 (probably more) won't make an effort to do their job, and an unpaid intern (who's not even an intern anymore) has to do it for them.
Welcome to the world of military social work.
nesting - September 05, 2006
I'm here!! - August 25, 2006
Finally, some good news - March 02, 2006
The Day That Almost Was - February 26, 2006
can you keep a secret? - February 01, 2006
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